The Vampire & Her Witch

Chapter 1723: Unearned Dignity

"If you already knew, why go through all this?" Serle said bitterly as he stared at the woman- no, the witch- who had just forced him to reveal some of his darkest secrets in front of his own family. "What is it you want from me?""You misunderstand me, Lord Serle," Ashlynn said, shaking her head at the defeated lord. "It’s what I’m offering to you," she said as she moved her hand from the scroll with the midnight blue ribbon to the thickest one with the black ribbon.

"I’m going to offer you a chance to preserve your life, Lord Serle," Ashlynn said, unlacing the scroll and unrolling the first foot or so of parchment to reveal that it was completely blank. "This scroll has been reserved for your confession. I still have all the others," she said, waving at the scrolls she hadn’t yet touched. "So make sure that it’s complete and comprehensive."

"And if I do, then you’ll pardon me?" Serle said with a snort. "I can’t imagine that you’ll let me keep my throne, so, what? I’d be free to live as a commoner? If word spreads that I’ve betrayed my patrons, I’ll fall to an assassin’s blade within a year."

"I can place you somewhere beyond the reach of most assassins," Ashlynn said confidently. "I won’t offer you an easy life, but I’ll offer you a final chance to do something of worth with the years you have left," she said.

"Somewhere that you can keep me in your own ’stable’ in case you have need of my connections?" Serle said, laughing at himself for falling into the same pit he’d pulled so many others into.

"Somewhere your family can visit you," Ashlynn countered. "Should they ever find it in their hearts to see you after today. The dead only rarely get a second chance in this life, Lord Serle," she said ominously. "Isn’t it better to preserve the one you have against the hope that one day, they might be able to offer you a second chance?"

"I’m not a strong man, your Dominion," Serle said, shaking his head and putting on an air of great reluctance. "A year in your dungeons would be no different than an assassin’s blade, just slower. If that’s the case, I’ll meet my end with what dignity I have left."

"I had something more dignified than a dungeon in mind," Ashlynn said calmly as she looked at the faces of Serle’s family.

Charlotte was doing her best to hold back the sobs raging in her chest, and fresh tears spilled from the corners of her eyes as she clutched the arm of the chair she sat in. Her brother, Serge, seemed unfazed, though there was a faint echo of his father’s calculating gaze in his eyes as he watched his father, likely considering what he would do with the barony that was about to fall into his lap.

Melsinde, in some ways, was the most heartbreaking of the three of them. Ashlynn watched as the hurt faded from her eyes, replaced by a vacant, hollow look of someone who could no longer see a light at the end of the tunnel they’d stumbled into. She was giving up, not just on Serle, but on her family and herself as well.

"Exile," Ashlynn said, turning back to Serle Otker. "As my ’Lord Ambassador’ to the High Fen," she added. "Publicly, you keep your position, at least for now. Melsinde can rule in your stead. In the fall, when I open a new academy in the Vale of Mists, both Serge and Charlotte can enroll," she said, glancing briefly at Charlotte. "Adala has already agreed to attend," she said, sparking a brief gleam of brightness in her friend’s eyes.

"I’ll see that your family is protected, and you’ll go into exile with an honorable appointment," Ashlynn promised. "But make no mistake, Lord Serle. High Lady Erna isn’t a forgiving person to work with. I think she can make use of your skills, but whether you live or die there will depend on how useful you make yourself."

Ashlynn wasn’t certain that Serle could survive more than a few days under High Lady Erna’s tender care, but then again, she expected that if anyone could squeeze value out of Serle’s life, it was the serpentine ruler of the High Fen. And there were lessons about how human rulers conducted themselves that it would benefit Erna to have an example of, if for no reason other than to understand the enemy Nyrielle had faced for so many years and how they preyed on even their own people when they thought they could.

Whether Serle could prove useful to Erna or not, the letter she would send along with Serle would make it very clear how little kindness should be extended to her ’ambassador.’

"And lest you have thoughts of turning her against us or extracting some petty form of revenge," Ashlynn added in a stern, warning tone. "You should know that High Lady Erna calls Nyrielle ’auntie’ and worships the bloodstained ground she walked on."

The offer that Ashlynn made sounded generous, and in many ways, it was. It was also a practical solution to a number of problems that Serle presented to her. If she exposed his crimes, she’d have to expose how many of them the Vale of Mists’ own forces had been complicit in. It would be difficult to hold him accountable for using assassins when the ones he hired had been Marcel’s men.

Revealing that the Black Merchant had kidnapped and protected those children rather than killing them wouldn’t do any good either. It would just drag those children into the light and expose them to the fathers who had ordered them killed.

This way, Ashlynn could remove Serle from power without exposing secrets the Vale wasn’t ready to expose; she could preserve the life of her friend’s father or at least escape becoming his executioner, and she could see that Serle was still punished for his crimes, even if his fate would be far better than what he deserved.

It was a compromise, one of many that she would be making in the days to come, and one of the most generous. She only hoped that Serle would be smart enough to take it. Because if he wasn’t, she’d have to swing the sword and take his life, no matter the consequences to her fledgling realm or her friendship with Charlotte.

"Can I take the night to consider your offer?" Serle asked as he stared at the scroll. "I..."

"No," Ashlynn said curtly. "This is your one and only opportunity to prove that you have the capacity to do the right thing, and the only path I will give you to preserve your life. Write out your confession now, along with the locations of any records you’ve hidden pieces of ’leverage’ you’ve accumulated for your fellow lords, or face the headsman’s blade," she said coldly.

"The choice is yours, but make it now," Ashlynn said.

Serle looked briefly at Melsinde, then at Serge, and for a moment he nearly gave up and asked for the axe. But looking at Charlotte’s tear-filled, pleading eyes touched a part of him that he’d only ever shared with his wife and children, and if she could still look at him like that...

"All right," Serle said as he reached for the scroll. "I’ll write it all out for you..."